


of the slow autumn

by iwatobiaquarium (daleked)



Series: sharkbait week [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daleked/pseuds/iwatobiaquarium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru is tired. He’s tired of staying in the same house, poking through the cupboards and the bathroom and occasionally rattling the shutters. He’s tired of watching people outside go by like he isn’t there.</p><p>Well, technically speaking, he isn’t.</p><p>Warnings: ft. ghost!Haru and past major character death, if Haru being a ghost wasn't already an indication of that. No angst here, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of the slow autumn

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted to my [tumblr](http://billielurk.tumblr.com/tagged/freeficlets) . it was really fun writing this, because ghost!Haru.

Haru is tired. He’s tired of staying in the same house, poking through the cupboards and the bathroom and occasionally rattling the shutters. He’s tired of watching people outside go by like he isn’t there.

Well, technically speaking, he isn’t.

Haru is stuck in this house, haunting it. He remembers living in this house a little, but mostly he remembers how he passed on. A simple accident, slipping in the bathroom in the morning when he was still bleary-eyed from sleep. He'd cracked his head against the rim of the bathtub. Haru vaguely remembers lying there thinking  _oh. So this is how it ends._  The neighbours came in a week later complaining about the smell, and found his body.

Haru stays on. There hadn’t been a white light of any sort, and from what he remembers of ghosts when he was still alive he had read that they only stayed on if they had unfulfilled desires. So it’s a puzzle to him, staying on in this place when there is nothing left for him in this world.

The family living in the house at the moment is a simple one. A family, just a mother and a father and a son. Haru remembers them coming to view the house, and the wife had been particularly adamant about owning it despite the agent’s warning that it was haunted.

'I can see him,' Gou had said dismissively, and waved away any futher discussions. She knows about Haru, and she's fine with him, and if Haru remembers correctly her name is Gou.

'I'm home, Haru!' She calls, stepping through the door. Gou is nice to him. She's considerate, and greets him and politely knocks on the door of the bathroom (one of his favourite places) before she goes in. And she knows his name. Gou walks through the house with her bag of groceries and leaves it there on the kitchen table. 'Rin will be home anytime soon. Help me look out for him?' Haru knocks once against the wall and floats obediently towards the door. Gou's son is named Rin, and for some reason the name sends twinges down Haru's spine whenever he hears it.

He doesn’t know why.

Haru fades through the door and finds himself in direct sunlight. He can leave the house if he wants to, and manifest himself into a corporeal form long enough for people to see him and to interact with physical things, but these actions sap his energy. He peers out the gate and sees Rin coming down the road, violently red hair (he takes after his father, not mother) gleaming in the evening light. He’s back from swimming club, toying with his phone and texting as he walks.

The van zips by right before him, moving way too fast for a residential street. Haru reacts without thinking, flashing forward and gaining solidity as he moves. Rin finally looks up and screams, and Haru wonders if he’ll be able to save Rin before the Mikoshiba household gains another ghost.

There’s the screech of tyres and the blare of a horn before the van turns the corner and disappears. Haru can feel the van slam into him just as he pushes Rin away, just solid enough to feel pain again. When he lets go of Rin he can barely muster enough energy to float off, and stays by the road a while.

Gou comes out of the house and Rin runs crying to his mother, clinging to her apron. She murmurs soft words of reassurance to him before sending him in. Before Gou closes the door behind her, she looks out hesitantly.

'Haru?' She calls softly. 'Come home now.' Haru shakes his head and she seems to catch it. She smiles, and Haru thinks he can see her crying. He wants to ask why, but he can't. The world around him seems brighter somehow.

She goes into the house and shuts the door.

Haru sits out by the road trying to gather enough energy to move from his current spot. He can’t. He feels himself fading away, and wonders where ghosts go when they’ve missed their chance to move on.

'Haru.'

'I'm busy,' Haru says, and realises what he's done. He's talking, and there's a young man standing on the road talking to him, and he has red hair the exact same shade as Gou's.

And Haru remembers. He remembers the Rin he knew years ago, a swimmer at the same club. He remembers Rin drowning in the club when they were reckless teenagers, challenging each other to a secret race after the swim club had closed for the night. Haru had tried his best to save Rin, pressing his lips to Rin’s cold ones and breathing into his mouth and pushing at his chest desperately. And Rin hadn’t stirred.

The coroner had pronounced it a death by misadventure, and Haru had wept silently in his room after that.

'I'm sorry,' Haru says, because that's all he can say. Rin smiles and takes his hand. Haru has a thousand more words to say, ten thousand, a hundred thousand—  _I loved you then, even if I didn't know it, even if you didn't know it. I wish I had realised it sooner, and we would have gone on a date instead of having a race, and you'd still be alive and I'd still be alive_ — his train of thought ends when Rin pulls him towards the house.

The door to the house swings open, but instead of the familiar entryway all Haru can see is light. ‘It’s my turn to save you,’ Rin says, and there’s a roaring in Haru’s ears and the sensation of warmth spreading through his body. Rin has wings, Haru realises dimly, and they spread out behind him, shining.

Haru squeezes Rin’s hand, and follows him home.

**Author's Note:**

> i'd love to know what you thought of this.


End file.
